Pel and the Faceless Corpse

by Mark Hebden

  Even his name was a load. Every time he had to produce his papers to have his badge renewed, every time he had to pay his taxes or change his driving licence – there it was staring out at him. He often thought it was the reason he’d never married.

  He parked the car in the street outside his house. The slamming of the driver’s door sounded like someone hurling a tin can into the gutter. Only a poverty-striken overworked inspector would have a battered Peugeot as he did. The men he sent to prison always seemed to drive Mercs.

  The house was shuddering to the sound of the television. Madame Routy was a television addict. For Madame Routy there were only two positions in the volume control. Off and full blast. It sounded like the charge of Ney’s cuirassiers at Mont St Jean.

  As usual she occupied le confort anglais, the best chair in the house, and she looked up indifferently.

  ‘Your meal’s in the oven,’ she said.

  Pel went to the kitchen and opened the oven. As he took out the casserole dish he guessed the vegetables were frozen. Scooping the lot into the rubbish bucket under the sink, he decided to eat out. He fished out a cigarette packet from his pocket, hesitated, put it back and produced the little roller gadget. One day, he decided, he’d spend all weekend making cigarettes. He could end up on a Monday with enough for a whole month and the practice would make him an expert.

  He fiddled about for ten minutes or so, put the result in his mouth, lit it and drew two unsatisfying puffs before taking it out and tossing it into the rubbish bucket after the casserole. Lighting a Gauloise, he decided it was probably better to die of cancer of the lung than overwrought nerves. The way he smoked, he thought, it was a wonder even the walls weren’t cancerous. Perhaps, however, it was just a lot of doctors being neurotic, because he’d heard Albanians smoked from birth to old age, and cancer was unknown there.

  Reassured, he set off for the city. The restaurant he chose was the Relais St Armand in the Avenue Maréchal Foch. It served good beer and a Muscadet that was sharp enough to take the enamel off your teeth, and he decided on an andouillette, the tripe sausage of the region.

  As he waited, fiddling with the cigarette maker, the woman on the next table watched with interest. ‘Why not try a real one?’ she suggested, passing a silver-inlaid case across.

  ‘Thank you, Madame,’ Pel said with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘I’m more than grateful. But I’m trying to give it up.’

  When Pel’s soup arrived, he ate it heartily. Despite the fact that he was a convinced dyspeptic, he still had a healthy appetite. When he’d finished the meal, he fished for his cigarettes, sighed, replaced them and took out the roller. The woman smiled and held up her case. He shook his head firmly.

  ‘I must persevere, Madame,’ he said.

  The result was the same as usual and she laughed out loud. ‘Do you ever catch fire?’ she asked.

  ‘Not too often,’ Pel said grimly.

  She passed the case across and he accepted sadly.

  She was in her late thirties, he judged, with an unlined face, good features and deep violet eyes. He wished he could offer her Madame Routy’s job.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll take a brandy with me,’ he suggested.

  She shook her head. ‘I never touch it. I have to watch my weight.’

  He expressed dutiful astonishment and said that he, too, had to try to keep fit.

  ‘You are perhaps an athlete?’ she asked.

  Pel stared down at his incipient paunch. ‘Madame, you have to be joking.’

  ‘But no!’ Her eyes widened. ‘Why should I be? You look a fit, young man. It’s a natural question.’

  Pel was flattered. Fit! Young! It went to his head a little. ‘I’m a policeman,’ he confessed.

  He waited for her to sneer. It was the usual thing. People sneered at you because you stood up to be shot at by terrorists or have your head broken by rioting students, or because you had a job that obviously wasn’t paid enough and you had to be corrupt. Instead, she expressed polite interest.

  ‘I have responsibilities to my job, too,’ she said. ‘I run a beauty salon.’

  ‘Ah!’ That probably explained her neat hair, her good make-up. ‘You’ve probably heard of it: Nanette. In the Rue de la Liberté.’ Pel had.

  ‘I’m Nanette. Geneviève Faivre-Perret.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘There isn’t one. He’s dead. That’s why I’m Nanette. Otherwise I’d stay at home and get up late every morning.’

  ‘Ah!’ Pel was enjoying himself. ‘Pel, Madame. Inspector Pel.’ He wondered which of his three names to offer her – something which always bothered him – and decided on the first. ‘Evariste Pel.’

  They shook hands solemnly, then she began to collect her belongings and stood up. She had a figure like a dream. ‘I have to go,’ she said.

  Pel watched her like a spaniel having its lunch taken away from it. At the door, she paused and smiled at him as she went out, and he settled back to stare at his coffee sunk in the blackest despondency.

  Full of fantasies about getting rid of Madame Routy and offering the job to Madame Faivre-Perret, with the strict qualification that she never need get up early, he returned home.

  He was thoroughly disillusioned. It was nice to have fantasies, but perhaps a good job they never came off. Doubtless Madame Faivre-Perret had a temper and – if it were possible! – liked to have the television even louder than Madame Routy.

  He went to bed deep in gloom.

  Downstairs Madame Routy was watching a programme on the kings of France that sounded like the storming of the Tuileries. It would go on to the last bitter minute, then there would be silence while she made a hot drink. Just as he was dropping off to sleep, she would charge – that was the only word for it – upstairs and smash up the bathroom as she prepared for bed. He knew she was only washing and cleaning her teeth and brushing her hair, but it always sounded as if she were wrecking the place and it was always a matter of great surprise to him the next day when he went in to find it still there, undamaged.

  Sure enough, she did charge up the stairs just as he was dropping off and began, apparently, to hurl things at the bathroom walls. Madame Routy could make turning taps on and off sound like the liberation of Paris.

  Eventually, the uproar died down and he heard her door slam. By this time he was wide awake, certain he’d never go to sleep again. He tried for a while to think of Madame Faivre-Perret and wondered if he might find an excuse to investigate the identity of the man at Bussy-la-Fontaine at her salon.

  He couldn’t imagine how he possibly could.

  He’d just dropped off again when the telephone went. The sound crashed round the room, rattling against the walls and bringing him upright in bed at once.

  Snatching up the instrument he barked at it. ‘Pel!’

  It was Darcy, and Pel snarled at him. ‘What is this?’ he demanded. ‘It’s getting to be a habit.’

  Darcy made soothing noises and Pel went on bitterly. ‘I’d just got off to sleep,’ he said. ‘Don’t I ever get any peace?’

  His martyrdom didn’t seem to have got across, so he pushed it a little harder. ‘You’ll be telling me next that someone else’s been attacked.’

  ‘Yes, Patron –’ Pel felt sure that Darcy was smiling as he spoke ‘–I will. Because somebody has. That chap Matajcek. He was discovered with a fractured skull outside his barn.’

  Four

  ‘There seems to be a nut about,’ Darcy said.

  They stood in the rain outside a battered stone barn. The rain was coming down like stair rods now and they were all soaked to the skin.

  They had passed the ambulance on the way up, jolting down the uneven lane and rolling through the puddles to send out waves of liquid mud from the wheels. If anything, the wind was colder than ever and it plastered their wet trousers to their legs, clammy and icy, as they tried to shelter from the weather.

  Massu’s constable, Weyl, making a last-minute prowl round in the
hope that he might bump into whoever had dumped the body at the calvary, had called at Vaucheretard and found Matajcek lying outside his door in a puddle of water. The doctor he’d summoned from Savoie St Juste, was young, handsome, and cynical, and his report on Matajcek was simple and straightforward.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ he said in answer to Pel’s question. ‘Easy. Fractured skull, old age and dirt. He’s got a fractured skull because somebody hit him with something heavy and hard, he’s suffering from old age because he was born a long time ago, and he was dirty because he never washed.’

  Pel listened irritatedly. The only person entitled to be funny when Pel was around was Pel himself. ‘What was he hit with?’ he asked.

  ‘Spade,’ the doctor said. ‘Plough share. Anvil. Side of a house. Take your pick. Hard, heavy and flat. That’s as far as I can say at the moment. Because he was old, it’s touch and go, and because he’s dirty – and, mon dieu, how dirty! – he’ll probably get gangrene and die of that.’

  ‘Is he going to die?’

  ‘Probably not. But it’ll be a long time before he recovers enough to talk.’

  Only two of the rooms of the derelict house were occupied, one the kitchen. There was no bathroom, and the cow byre alongside was as tumbledown as the house itself.

  ‘It must be part of that bank robbery and the murder of those cops at St Symphorien,’ Massu said in a flat voice. ‘They must be working their way north past this district.’

  Pel gave him a sour look. ‘This trouble Matajcek had with Piot,’ he asked. ‘What happened?’

  Massu shrugged. ‘It was about boundaries,’ he said. ‘He’d pinched a bit of Piot’s land. Carefully, you understand, and in Heurion’s time. In a valley between where nobody goes much. But when he moved the fence, it put the stream on his side so his cattle could use it. He thought he could get away with it but Heurion wasn’t that stupid. I had to deliver a notice to him to remove it.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘As far as I know, no. But Piot’s taken it to court again since and judgement’s been given for him, so that seems to be that.’

  Leaving Nosjean to explore the place, Pel turned to the car. ‘I’m going to Bussy-la-Fontaine,’ he said. ‘This time they might have seen someone. Keep your eyes open, Nosjean. Find out if there’ve been any strangers about.’

  Nosjean blinked the rain from his eyelashes and spat it from his lips. He looked about him at the puddled farmyard and the ooze that had once been cow dung but had disintegrated under the rain into a yellow slime. A dejected-looking hen was picking about among the scattered chaff under a broken cart that was short of a wheel.

  ‘Who do I ask, Patron?’ He gestured at the tumbledown buildings, the mud, the broken gates, and the few cows making snuffling noises as they chewed their cud, mooing welcomes as they stared at them with their big soft eyes. ‘Nobody ever comes here.’

  ‘You never know your luck,’ Pel said flatly. ‘Somebody might. And we haven’t got the weapon yet.’

  There were still policemen by the calvary at Bussy-la-Fontaine with Misset.

  ‘Patron,’ Misset complained. ‘I ought to be home. Not standing here getting my death of cold.’

  ‘Why you particularly?’ Pel asked tartly. ‘I’m wet, too.’

  ‘My wife needs me, Patron.’

  ‘When’s the baby due?’

  ‘Three months time.’

  Pel grunted. ‘You ought to be home by then,’ he said remorselessly. ‘Have you found anything?’

  Misset gave him a bitter look. ‘No, Chief. There aren’t any tracks. If someone brought the stiff up by car to dump him, it must have been done before the snow and while the ground was still hard from frost. There are no footprints – not identifiable, anyway – and just one tyre print down there.’

  ‘What sort?’

  Misset shrugged. ‘Looks exactly the same as the ones on my own car,’ he said. ‘Michelin ZX 145-15.’

  ‘Have you taken a cast?’

  ‘Too wet at the moment, Chief. And that clot, Massu, put his foot on it. “Look at that, Massu,” I said. “Where?” he said. “Right under your damned great hoof,” I told him. There’s enough to get a cast, though. I’ve covered it and taped it off. I’ll get it as soon as the rain stops.’ Misset brushed the rain from his face. ‘It won’t tell us much, though. That tyre’s fitted on every small car in France – Renaults, Citroën Dianes, the lot. They have ’em on the vans of every police sub-station in the country.’

  Pel stared about him. There was still snow on the northern slopes but it had turned to grey slush now and inside the taped-off area there wasn’t a single footprint. Pel frowned. He’d been a policeman long enough to know there was something odd about this case – that was, if you didn’t call a man with his head almost blown to shreds and stripped to his underclothes odd already. It had a feel about it. As if somehow it weren’t anchored in anything he understood.

  ‘No signs of black magic?’ he asked.

  ‘Patron?’ Misset looked startled.

  Pel sighed. ‘There’ve been some funny cases lately,’ he said. ‘People going in for the occult.’

  Misset caught on. ‘I’ve found nothing you could remotely connect with that sort of thing,’ he said. ‘They go in for feathers tied in a bunch, fires and so on, don’t they? There’s nothing here but pine cones and snow. And no fires.’ He stamped his feet. ‘I wish to God there was a fire.’

  ‘You could always put a match to the barn,’ Darcy suggested.

  Pel frowned at the flippancy. ‘Let’s see if we can make a start by getting our man identified,’ he said. ‘Round the hotels. See if anybody’s missing. Push it. Put Krauss on it. His chicken stealer’s not been busy lately. Check as far south as Châlon-sur-Saône. As far north as Bussy-Rabutin. East to the Jura. West to Sémur. That ought to be enough. If the man was a commercial traveller – something of that sort – I doubt if he’d have come from further away than that. Not in one day. Not in this weather. He ought to come out of the woodwork somewhere.’

  On the way back into the city, Pel sat silently. Darcy said nothing, waiting for him to speak. The rain lashing against the windscreen was swept away in miniature tidal waves by the wipers. Pel stirred at last, fiddled with his cigarette roller for a moment or two, put it away, dragged out a Gauloise, lit it and drew guiltily on it.

  ‘See any connection?’ he asked.

  ‘Between Matajcek and our faceless friend?’

  Pel nodded, his eyes dark and sad.

  ‘Well, Matajcek was a Czech, and Czech timber workers have worked at Bussy-la-Fontaine.’ Darcy’s shoulders moved. ‘Massu thinks it was those four who killed the cops at St Symphorien.’

  Pel grunted. ‘Massu’s got solid stone between his ears,’ he growled.

  ‘Well, it’s too big a coincidence to ignore,’ Darcy said. ‘And Matajcek’s place is just the sort they look for. One occupant. No woman to gossip. Perhaps they turned up after we left yesterday.’

  They stopped at Val-Suzon for a coffee and roll. Darcy suggested a brandy to warm them up and Pel didn’t say no, because he liked brandy. On the other hand, he didn’t say yes, either, because brandy didn’t like him, so he merely grunted and let it roll over him.

  Back at the office there was a message to call the Chief. Pel sighed and picked up the telephone. The Chief was worried.

  ‘There’s been a cry for help from St Etienne,’ he said. ‘Have we seen four bank robbers?’

  He seemed to be urging Pel on to greater efforts and Pel frowned. ‘I think we have enough troubles of our own,’ he said, and recounted what had happened at Orgny.

  There was a long silence. ‘Could there be any connection with the St Symphorien shootings?’ Encouraging noises came down the telephone. ‘Keep your eyes open. If there’s the slightest chance we’ll have to call in St Etienne.’

  As Pel put the telephone down, Doctor Minet rang. He sounded cheerful.

  ‘I’ve finished with your stiff,’ he said.<
br />
  ‘Anything that might identify him?’

  ‘Just the tattoo. And the old bullet wound in the right calf. You know about them.’

  ‘Go on. There’s more, I know.’

  ‘Yes.’ Minet laughed. ‘He’s no smoker by the look of him. There were no traces of nicotine in his lungs, and his fingers weren’t yellowed. Yet there were traces on his teeth, which is odd. He’d been shot six times by a .38 calibre revolver. Three times in the face and three times in the back of the head, with the angle of the bullet moving upwards from the base of the spine.’

  ‘Classic execution angle,’ Pel observed.

  ‘Except that his throat was cut first.’

  Pel frowned and the doctor went on. ‘From behind,’ he said. ‘They usually do it that way. Grab the hair and hold the head back with the left hand, to expose the throat, then sweep across the jugular with the knife in the right.’

  ‘And the bullets?’

  ‘He was dead when they were fired. Thrown forward, I expect. He was on his knees when he was killed – there are mud and grass stains – and as the blood flowed from his throat he was flung on to his face. Then the gun was placed against the base of the skull and fired. There are burns. Two more shots were fired. They smashed out through the forehead and cheeks. Then he was turned over – by a foot, I imagine, to avoid the blood – and three more shots were fired into his face – into the area not already smashed by the bullets fired from behind. They completed the mess.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. One other thing – he’d been hit on the head before he was shot, and there were marks on the wrists and round the mouth that indicated he’d been bound and gagged. I think he was hit on the head, tied up and gagged, then put in a car and taken away – but not to the calvary, because there isn’t enough blood there. He was made to undress and forced to kneel. His head was jerked back and his throat was cut, and his features demolished with a gun. Then his head and shoulders were wrapped in a blanket – there are traces of it in his hair – and he was removed to the calvary and dumped.’